What began as a simple Dallas City Council committee briefing about the success of the city-owned Omni Hotel and the need for further amenities became an hour-long discussion concerning the potential sale of the hotel. It was also revealed during the meeting Tuesday afternoon that the city is carrying $659 million in debt on the convention center hotel.

Long story short: A sale isn't likely to happen any time soon -- at least within the next two to five years, said Wayne Placide, one of the city's outside financial advisors. It could be even longer than that, insisted council member Jerry Allen and chair of the council's Budget, Finance and Audit Committee. He repeatedly and strongly suggested some of his colleagues table this discussion until, if need be, 2029.

The city will sell "when the timing is right," said Allen. "But it goes back to the financing of it."

He was referring, in part, to the close to $400 million in taxable Build America Bonds the city used to finance the 1,001-room hotel in 2009. They come with low interest rates, but a high make-whole call penalty likely to scare off investors for whom a two-year operating record is no sure bet, Placide told the council.

"Whenever your revenue-per-room gets to the point where it justifies the asking price," then it'll be time to sell, said Placide. "It depends on market conditions, the growth and experience of the hotel, which to this point has been very positive and is trending upward." But, he said, it's "difficult to say when" the time will be right to sell.

Rom King, who runs the convention center, said the city needs "a longer track record than we have," which is a little more than two years of operation.

Council members Philip Kingston, Lee Kleinman and Jennifer Staubach Gates insisted that if the hotel's performing as well as the numbers suggest, if its occupancy rates and revenue are indeed several percentage points higher than initial projections, then it's time to look for a buyer.

"Even the people I know who supported building it have said we need to sell it," said Kingston, the first to broach the subject.

"It behooves us to not create new reasons to keep this hotel," said Kleinman. "We laid out some goals and objectives. We're meeting them and meeting them well ... But now would be a good time not to create more reasons to hold on to it. This thing can become sticky in regards that we won't be able to get rid of it in 10, 15 years, when maybe we have an opportunity now, while the market's strong and there's an upswing in the economy."

But Tennell Atkins wasn't buying what his colleagues were trying to sell.

He said the city needs to spend more money around the convention center and Omni before it becomes it becomes a truly desirable property. He pointed to the $5 million the city's going to spend on lighting the DART station beneath the convention center, and the $27 million going into the four-restaurant space next to the hotel. Those projects, he said, are just the beginning of the beginning of what Dallas needs before the Omni can hit the market.

"The house can be great, but it's sitting in the middle of the desert with nothing around it," said Atkins. "We can't sell the hotel because it's a great hotel."

That prompted Kingston to fire off the following tweet: "Tennell wants to put MORE tax dollars in and around the Omni. We're currently $659mm in debt. It never ends." Later, Kingston took a shot at Allen, who insisted Dallas needs to keep the hotel for as long as possible because it's doing so well.

"Jerry Allen thinks we're making money on the hotel," Kingston said via Twitter. "And as always, he thinks the rest of us are ignorant."